THE PHILOSOPHY OF BENEDETTO CROCE.* FEw thinkers, not themselves originators
of new systems, have rendered so much service to the development of philosophy as Dr. Wildon Carr. The International Congresses of Philosophy prac- tically owed their institution and success, until they were suspended by the outbreak of the war, to his unwearied and disinterested efforts. He has done for M..Henri Bergson what Fiske did for Herbert Spencer and Hutchison Stirling did for Hegel—distilled into one moderate-sized and understandable volume the essence of a beach- ing diffused by the primary author through numerous large treatises. In the present work he has undertaken, with conspicuous ability, a similar task on behalf of the Italian philosopher, Signor Benedetto Croce.
I wish, Spencer, you would explain the main points of your philosophy to me just shortly," said a friend of that now decried philosopher one day when they were both lounging beside a fish- pond. Spencer remonstrated gravely at being asked to epitomize in ten minutes the labour of thirty-six years, but promised to do his best, and began accordingly to expound. As he warmed to his work he was rewarded by seeing a look of profound attention settle on the face of his companion, who gazed down into the water and apparently listened intently ; but just when the philosopher was fully convinced that at last his ideas were being received into a hitherto unreceptive intelligence, his friend suddenly exclaimed : I say, Spencer, are those gudgeon ? " and darted away round the pond ; and the discourse came to a premature but permanent close. As Dr. Carr's work is itself a closely reasoned synopsis of a whole system, to review it adequately within the limits of our space would be as impossible as Spencer found the duty laid upon him. We shall, therefore, endeavour merely to state dogmatically what appear to us to be the fundamental points of Croce's teaching, and refer the reader (if he is sufficiently interested) to the book itself for the reason- ings by which the various positions are supported, and for a full consideration of the more important arguments which. may be urged against them.
"Croce's claim is not to have presented a final system of phil- osophy, but to have presented a view of philosophy which finally delivers it from the reproach of a dualistic hypothesis." From his point of view, thought and action do not appear as two mental forma parallel and independent of each other ; they are distinct but united. Each being the negation of the other, cannot exist without that other. "Their duality is not dualism but dialectic ; the true unity is not immobility but activity, not pure being but becoming." There are two aspects of this activity under which life presents itself to us : an activity of knowing, and an activity of doing. Knowing is the condition of doing ; and therefore doing depends on knowing, while knowing is independent of doing. Knowing further resolves itself into aesthetic activity, whose object is pure intuition; and logical activity, whose object is the pure concept. Here again the second is conditioned by the first, and the first is independent of the second. A parallel analysis can be made of the activity of doing : we have the economic activity, whose motives are individual, and the ethical activity, whose motives are universal—the former conditioning, but otherwise independent of, the latter. We thus arrive at the four moments in the unfolding of mind, which stand to each other in a definite unchangeable relation, and whose order of development is not temporal but logical. The first moment is in- tuition—" the immediate expression or taking shape of the image"; the second is the concept in which the image is universalized. We pass then to volition-action, and reach the third moment, in which the end of the action appears as the direct utility of the individual, and the fourth moment, in which the end is universal. Each of these four moments except the first depends on those below it in order; each is fully consaete (i.e., it presents the whole reality under • The Philvevphy of Amidst& Croce. By H. Wilder' Carr. D.Litt, London: Macmillan and Co. rah ed. net.]
- _ one of its aspects), and each is therefore a pure concept. The four resulting—or, rather, characteristic—concepts are the beautiful, the true, the useful, and the good.
Here we must admit that we find ourselves in a difficulty. If it is only in the second moment that the image_becomea universalized, it appears to us that in the first it must be something less than uni- versal, and therefore not a pure concept. We take it that the four moments refer only to mind, an it were, contemplating itself ; that the concept of intuitions is the beautiful, the concept of concepts the true, and so on, each activity furnishing the matter of, so to speak, higher concepts.
It is, however, upon his theory of Beauty that Croce has been most attacked, as being in direct opposition not only to the majority of previous philosophers, but to the dictates of ordinary common- sense :—
" Croce's theory of Beauty . . . rests on the affirmation of an aesthetic activity as a special sphere of mental activity, distinct alike from the logical activity on the one hand, and from the ethical activity on the other. Beauty is not truth and it is not goodness, but a value distinct in its nature from either. Beauty is successful expression. We may even leave out the qualification ' successful ' and say simply, Beauty is expression, for unsuccessful expression is not expression."
The word " expression " is here used in a technical sense which re- quires a little explanation. "It is the form the mind gives to its intuitions, the form intuition takes as it utters itself." It therefore follows that there can be no intuition without expression. Similarly there can be no concepts without words, although the words need not be uttered. "Thoughts too deep for words are an illusion, because the logical activity is that which expresses itself in concepts." Here Croce denies the loose sensationalism of the popular view, but any one who chooses to analyse his own mental processes will probably admit that he is right. So, too, his view of Beauty, that it is wholly a matter of the internal image, and includes ugliness as its component, is one apparently contrary to the dictates of intelli- gence; and yet it is hard to see how it can be set aside 011 any hypothesis which does not involve a dualism.
Of Dr. Carr's explanations, we can only say that they are as lucid as the nature of the subject admits. As in all probability his work will be much used by students, we suggest that in future editions he should insert a page or two of analysis of the contents, which would be of great assistance to the reader in helping him, while busied on particular sections, to keep in mind their relation to the whole system. His style is at once easy and accurate, and his illus- trations, although perhaps too few in number, are always illumi- nating and apposite. How far the speculations he develops and advo- cates will bear the test of criticism, time alone will show. Croce's own opinion is that no final answer can be given to the eternal problems ; it is the function of philosophy always to posit new variations on the old theme. He has undoubtedly seized on a new standpoint from which to consider that ultimate reality whose true nature has always been the loadstone of philosophers.
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